Page 7 of Witch

Kana shrugged, awkward under the onslaught of her praise. “Diana demanded answers I had no interest in giving to her. Ember said I should stop her, and I didn’t want her to hurt the rest of the neighborhood.”

“Why are you calling her Diana?” Johanna asked, her voice strangely choked.

“When the other two women came running up to her, they called her Mother Diana. I figured Mother was her title and Diana her name. Am I wrong?”

Johanna nodded slowly, but her gaze wasn’t focused on Kana. Instead, she appeared to be ruminating on an internal thought.

“Sometimes I forget how many gaps there are in your education,” she finally said as she returned her attention to Kana. “What do you know about the Three?”

Kana blinked, surprised to hear that term from Johanna as well. “Diana said she was one of the Three. That’s the first time I heard that term.”

“Did she say anything else?” Johanna asked, rather than explaining.

Kana had only been confused before, but now he was worried. Diana had seemed like a witch—an incredibly powerful one, but still a witch. What if she was something more, and Kana had mortally offended her because of his ignorance? Kana didn’t need more to worry about.

“Witches have different belief systems,” Johanna finally explained. “Each coven follows a slightly different theology, based on the lore and mythology from which they believe their power derives. A coven is as much a religious order as it is a spell circle; you understand?” She waited for Kana to nod before continuing. “The Seattle coven’s beliefs were broader: that a great mother granted power to all her daughters, and through casting spells in the time-honored tradition, her daughters continued to honor her gifts. The Salem coven also believes in a greater, unknown, but all-knowing power, however they believe that power is manifested in the goddess’s aspects here on earth. They believe in a powerful trinity of women: the crone, who represents wisdom, the mother, who represents stability and power, and the maiden, who represents youth and promise. Some say they represent past, present, and future. Their titles are Crone Hecate, Mother Diana, and Maiden Lucina, and we apparently have Mother Diana at our doorstep.” She paused and stared at Kana as if another crazy thought had just entered her head. “You held Mother Diana to a standstill,” she breathed out, her voice shocked.

“She, um, she said I wasn’t a horned lord, whatever that means?” Kana added, his voice tentative because he didn’t know whether he ought to be happy at what he had done, or scared.

Johanna shook her head. “The Horned Lord is the male equivalent to the triple goddess belief. The Seattle coven doesn’t believe he exists, while the Salem coven do believe in him, but he would never appear as a regular witch with a cat familiar. The hunters would define the Horned Lord’s powers as those of a sorcerer, someone who pulls magic from within themselves, while witches pull power from the other side. The witches only see a male born from the coven who embodies the powers the goddess gave to men as a balance to women.”

“I’m definitely not a sorcerer,” Kana said in agreement. He didn’t know what he was, but his powers were pure witch, and his unusual strength came from his hunter father. Kana had no idea what power was imbued in hunters, just that they had the ability to fight all kinds of magical creatures, and some of that strength had been passed to Kana.

Johanna laughed. “You are a witch, through and through. I wouldn’t worry about it. Today, we need to toss the news station out on their ears and then go test that potion you made yesterday.”

“Yeah. Thanks for moving the interview to this afternoon.”

Johanna laughed. “After what I saw yesterday, I’m surprised you made it in today at all. Your wolf must be taking very good care of you.” She winked at him.

Kana ducked his head and hoped the warmth in his cheeks wasn’t too obvious. Not that Ember had done anything except carry him to bed yesterday, but it was a bed they shared in all the ways a couple could.

“Anyway,” Johanna continued once she finished laughing at him. “I’m going to set you up in Stan’s office, since he’s never here, and it’s the most generic office we have without being completely unused.”

Stan was Ary’s boss, but he was in charge of the hunters for multiple offices so was constantly traveling between them. His office had the usual pens, pads of paper, and old coffee rings, but he took all his paperwork with him so there wouldn’t be anything for the reporters to snoop.

“They should be here within the hour,” Johanna finished. “Why don’t you go get settled in, and I’ll bring them over when they get here?” Kana nodded and waved goodbye as he headed in the other direction, away from the lab space where Johanna was headed. He hoped the interview would go quickly since all Kana had to say was the hunters weren’t interested. If the reporter, or whoever was coming for the preinterview, didn’t try to wheedle and push to make Kana change his mind, he ought to be able to at least spend a few hours testing his potion.

Stan’s office was nicely sized, with a big wooden desk in the center. On one side were two plush visitor’s chairs, and Stan’s chair was an ergonomic monstrosity that Kana sank into and never wanted to get up again. He leaned back in the far too comfortable chair. Mika hopped into Kana’s lap, and Kana ran his fingers down Mika’s spine, scritching his fingers through Mika’s fur, as they settled in to wait.

Chapter Four

“KANA?” BETH GASPED when she walked into the office. Beth was Kana’s old coworker from when he had worked for one of the local news stations. Channel 7 was the local network; however, they were part of a larger conglomerate that included the newspaper and national level press. Kana and Beth had been in charge of all the grunt work. One of their responsibilities was finding potential stories and conducting the initial interview to see whether the piece was worth the time and effort of the bigwigs at the station. When Kana had worked at Channel 7, being sent on one of those preinterviews had brought Kana to the attention of the vampires and werewolves.

“Hello, Beth,” Kana replied. He ought to have guessed she would be the one he was meeting with. Channel 7 had a strange fixation on reporting stories about the supernatural community, and it was actually surprising they hadn’t reached out to the hunters before now. Certainly, they regularly called the wolves to ask for an interview, and Ember’s phone receptionists had gotten really good at fending them off.

Beth’s brown hair had been cut in a pixie bob the last time he had seen her, but it had grown down to her shoulders recently. Still, her friendly smile and happy demeanor seemed unchanged. She was followed into the room by a second woman who Kana vaguely recognized.

“This is Lyra,” Beth said as they both walked into the room, and Lyra closed the door behind them. “You met her the day you quit. She’s the one they hired to fill your position.”

Lyra nodded to him but didn’t smile or say anything. For someone who was supposed to want to entice and convince Kana to work with her on behalf of the network, she was being very dour. Her face was the pale white of someone who didn’t know how to match their foundation makeup to their skin tone, and her dark blue eyes were thickly lined with black. Her hair had also been dyed black, but Kana didn’t think she was going for a goth look.

Something’s weird in the air, Mika said, sniffing in Beth and Lyra’s direction from where he was hidden in Kana’s lap by the bulk of the table.

Something’s definitely weird, Kana agreed. He didn’t want to use magic today, but it was better to be safe than sorry. Kana’s magic channels ached and were sluggish as he widened them between himself and Mika and Sora, but he would need the boost of magic from them.

Beth was her usual bubbly and exuberant self, eager to do her job and genuinely happy to see Kana. Lyra’s demeanor, on the other hand, conveyed the exact opposite: she didn’t want to be here, she didn’t care about the story, and she had better things to do with her time. Kana had never been as effective as Beth at turning on the charm to get the ball rolling on a story, but he had tried a hell of a lot more than Lyra, which made him wonder why she was doing the job at all. Kana felt safe assuming the something weird he and Mika were sensing was coming from Lyra, although he couldn’t tell if it was a bad something, or just odd.

Kana waved toward the two visitor’s chairs and, while Beth and Lyra were busy taking their seats, he used magic, rather than chalk, to draw a couple of circles. The first was a basic containment circle under Lyra’s chair, which ought to hold her in place for at least a few seconds should she try anything. The second circle was much bigger—and layered. He drew on the walls of the room itself, first a base of a protection circle. The second layer was a combination of containment and concealment. Kana dithered over whether to add a third layer—he wasn’t sure whether it was worth wasting the energy to do it when there might not be an actual problem brewing—but he concluded it was still better to be safe than sorry. Kana drew a third layer with the runes for power and strength, to bolster the two previous layers.